Jurgen passes from his routine of life, as Faust does, through communion with spirits that partake of the power of darkness. It all starts with one night when, on his way home from a day of trafficking in his shop, Jurgen passes a Cistercian monk who, having stumbled over a stone, is cursing the devil that had placed it there. “Fie, brother”, says this wordly wise, this all sufficient Jurgen, “have not the devils enough to bear as it is?” (1) This attracts the attention of an earth spirit, one Koshchei, “who made things as they are”. For that reason this spirit, Koshchei, has his limitations. To him love is impossible--not carnal love, but the love of God, such love as never enters into Hell (257); such love as Jurgen’s grandmother, instructed by the priest, has for God (299, 302). Also to this earth spirit, Koshchei, is pride impossible (303). Of heavenly love the earth spirit cannot conceive, because he “made things as they are, and day and night he contemplates things as they are”. “How then”, says God Himself, “can Koshchei love anything?” (303). Pride, as the philosophical Satan tells Jurgen, is impossible to whoever it was that made things as they are, because he has to look at them, having nothing else to look at, so how can he be proud? (257). Almost, having in mind a certain treatise, _De Civitate Dei_, we can imagine St. Augustine speaking. The things of this world, the things as they are, are not to be loved, and he who made them, assuredly not the real God, finds love foreign to his breast. Anyhow, this Koshchei, “monstrously pleased” with Jurgen’s defense of the devils against the Cistercian monk, puts himself in Jurgen’s way. Appearing to the hero in the shape of a small black gentleman, the earth spirit promises Jurgen a reward (10-11). What that reward is to be soon develops. Arriving home, Jurgen finds his wife has vanished. She has gone to a cave, of evil magic, across Amneran Heath. On Walpurgis night, that night renowned in the calendar of demonology, Jurgen follows her there; but first, at her bidding he must remove from his neck a cross which had hung there, the gift of his dead mother (13). Then comes a medley of classic, of Russian, and of Norse mythology. Jurgen finds in the cave a centaur, who gives him a Nessus-shirt (16)--“an old poet, loaned at once a young man’s body and the Centaur’s shirt” (131)--the young man’s body which Faust desired, but the Nessus-shirt which even Hercules could not wear for long. Jurgen is now off for his tour of the infinite.